Conscience
by Aksannyi
Summary: Paige, overcome with guilt over what she had done, attempts to visit Mike in the hospital. Set shortly after the conversation between Charlie and Paige in 3x01. Oneshot.


**Because Paige wasn't able to go visit Mike in the hospital and yeah. Angst. Possible missing scene from 3x01. Set after the conversation with Charlie.**

* * *

" _He keeps asking for you. Can't you just check in?"_

 _Dammit, Charlie,_ Paige thought to herself as she walked through the automatic doors and into the hospital, slowly making her way through the hallway and heading toward the elevator that would lead to Mike's room. She hadn't even had to ask what room he was in – Charlie had yelled "Room 612!" at her as she'd left the house after saying she needed to get out and clear her head somewhat.

Truthfully, she'd had no intention of showing up here when she'd left Graceland. In fact, she could barely remember the drive over, which, under the circumstances, probably wasn't too smart, seeing as she'd just been shot at while driving not even three hours ago.

Remaining vigilant would probably be something she'd want to try. Probably.

 _What am I even doing here?_ Paige asked herself, not for the first time, as she pushed the elevator button and watched the doors close in front of her. She ran a hand through her hair and watched the numbers climb, feeling her chest tighten as the five turned to a six and the elevator dinged its arrival. The doors slowly slid open, and Paige stepped forward automatically, then stopped as the doors closed behind her, the elevator leaving to serve some other, perhaps more enthusiastic, hospital guest.

How in the hell could Mike be asking to see her after what she'd done? Surely he knew by now who had sent Sid to kill him, right?

She stopped at the corridor that would lead to his room, facing the hallway and looking straight ahead as if dazed by something in the distance. Mike was down this hallway – alive – no thanks to her. _I really don't deserve to stand in front of him and speak to him,_ she thought. Dread began to surround her at the thought of facing him, his face having manifested as the greatest of her demons over the past several days.

She'd given up his name to a murderous sociopath.

And the moment that the full weight of her actions had fully hit her, when she'd confessed to Paul and sank down to the floor choking on her own sobs, the one lingering thought in her mind was that she'd once _loved_ this man, and then she'd killed him. Whatever betrayal she'd experienced at his hands had been easily exceeded by her own actions.

And alive or no, it didn't change the fact that Mike had been technically dead for several minutes.

 _I killed him._

The fact that he _was_ alive was almost entirely irrelevant at this point. Dead or not, she still led Sid to him, she still gave him up. Her intent had been everything in that moment, and even Mike's survival couldn't erase what she'd done to him. Had he deserved to be punished for covering up Lena's death? Absolutely, but he hadn't deserved to _die_ for it. It wasn't like he'd been the one to kill her, and Sulla had already paid in blood for his sins.

Not that Sulla hadn't deserved worse. A bullet had been too kind to that sick piece of shit.

But Mike … Mike hadn't deserved what he'd gotten, at least not what he'd gotten at her hands. He'd made plenty of his own choices that played a hand in his predicament, but Sid showing up to finish the job was her fault and hers alone.

And when Paul had run out of the house and rushed to the hospital, she couldn't even bring herself to pick herself up off the floor and go after him in an attempt to fix the mess she'd made. Of _everything._ No, she'd sat there wallowing in her grief, unable – or perhaps unwilling – to move, to pick herself up, to continue forward in the face of what she'd just done.

His room was just three doors down from where she stood, and she could hear the faint beeping of heart monitors – one of which may well have been Mike's – wafting through the corridor. To hear such confirmation of life within these halls where just ten days ago, death hovered treacherously close to snatching Mike into its clutches seemed unsettling to Paige somehow, like the sky had suddenly turned green and everything was irrevocably changed.

And it _was,_ she had to admit. She didn't even know who she was anymore. It had been ten days since she'd made that choice, the choice to send Mike to hell, and she still couldn't find a single justification for it beyond recklessness and irrationality.

Oh, she'd been angry, and recklessly and irrationally so, and it had cost her. A piece of her she hadn't known she would miss when she'd given it up along with Mike's name.

And Mike had survived through some miracle, but certainly not through _her_ actions. It had been Paul to rush to the hospital, not her. It had been the doctors who had worked tirelessly over several minutes – they must have seemed like hours – to revive him, and then to repair the damage she'd wrought vicariously through Sid.

And what had she done? Collapsed, cried, for god only knows how long. She'd still been sitting there when Paul had returned to the house and announced that Mike would survive. Recover, even.

Would _recover._

And the sigh of relief she should have expelled never came, just a tightness in her chest that even now still compressed at her insides, twisting and churning inside the pit of her gut at the realization that eventually, she would have to face not just what she'd done, but _him._

 _She would have to face Mike Warren and admit what she had done._

Would it have been better if he'd died? Would she feel lighter somehow, like part of her penance had been buried with him? Facing him now seemed so much worse now than facing a headstone, apologizing to a memory, a vision.

How could she?

And Charlie, bless her soul, she only wanted to help, to bring them back together and try to repair some of the damage done between housemates, once lovers. But she had no idea, no _idea_ that the reason Paige had refused to see Mike was that by all accounts, _he should be dead._

 _And she would have been the reason for it._

She sucked in a deep breath and leaned against the wall, feeling the familiar tightness of panic beginning to set in. She couldn't face him. Not as he lay in a hospital bed and stared up at her with those eyes of his, those eyes that she'd once been able to look at and see something … _real,_ something special.

" _We used to have something special."_

"And now we have nothing," she muttered under her breath, nothing but the ashes of what was once a burning flame, dust left in the wake of what once was.

Somehow, she had slowly found herself standing outside his room, staring at the temporary name placard that declared that "WARREN, M" was convalescing inside. Not Mike Richards, as he should have been known, if she hadn't given up his cover identity less than two weeks ago. The fact that his own name was written so clearly and almost proudly on this name placard did nothing to assuage her guilt, only serving to remind her what she had given up, in so many definitions of the term.

How could she offer him words of hope for his recovery after what she'd done? What kind of hypocrisy would that be, for her to perpetuate some myth that she cared about him getting better when she'd been the one reason he was still here? How could she stand before him, look at him, speak to him, _breathe before him,_ knowing what she had put him through?

"I can't," she said aloud, uncaring whether he heard her from inside his room, backing away from the door and turning to run back down the corridor and toward the elevator, jamming on the "down" button impatiently. It wasn't long before one arrived and she slipped swiftly inside, reaching to select the first floor and leaning back against the wall as the doors closed, sliding down the wall and onto the floor, tears streaming down her face.

"I can't," she said again through chocked sobs, covering her face with her hands as the elevator began its descent.

* * *

 **Seriously, there was a lot of good material from the season premiere, but I visualized this scene happening almost immediately after hearing Charlie tell her to go visit him. My poor Paige.**


End file.
